Fearful Adversaries
by Assimbya
Summary: In 1860, a young university student named Abraham Van Helsing contacts a man rumored to be a vampire.


Abraham Van Helsing is a young man, and it is obvious in each overly confident, eager word. His cheeks are red, not with the autumn cold, Vlad Dracula thinks, but rather with a barely contained enthusiasm, and a nervousness that causes his hands to shake as he takes his coffee cup from the waiter.

Vlad watches him, and says little; he is evaluating. He does not think that Abraham Van Helsing is a danger, but he does not know. Anyone with enough courage to arrange to meet him could also be rash enough to attempt to corner him with crucifixes. Vlad is careful about such things.

But Van Helsing is also watching him, as though Vlad was a specimen in one of his medical classes. It makes Vlad want to hit him, so that he will stop looking for fangs at the corner of Vlad's mouth. He does not, there in the middle of the busy Amsterdam café. Instead he says, neutrally, "I understand that you are a medical student. May I ask why a student of modern science would be in search of information concerning beings who contradict the very laws of that science?"

Van Helsing sips his coffee, and says, the words coming in a rush as though he speaks them often, "Science and magic are two directions of a circle – following one for long enough always leads to the other."

Vlad smiles. He likes the concept, and the phrasing. "Do you truly believe that?" he asks, soft and unkind.

Van Helsing chokes on the coffee, coughing. When he recovers, he looks directly into Vlad's eyes. His own are a warm brown, pleasant against the ruddiness of his complexion. "I have read of many strange things in the world, and while perhaps they are not all true in the literal sense of it, there are in the world, or in men's minds, things that are outside of what science has yet discovered. I believe that."

Vlad smiles, gazing down at his own untouched cup of tea. "You have read of these things. You have not seen them."

Van Helsing's hands go to his pockets, suddenly. Vlad notes the movement, and the sudden weakness in Van Helsing's face. "I have not seen them. Till now."

"You have not sought them out? In this century of guides and indexes, such phenomena are easily found out. Creatures such as I are frequently incautious – they leave easily followed trails. If you wish to make your life's work the applying of rationality to the so far irrational, you have many means at your disposal to accomplish that goal."

Van Helsing takes another sip of coffee. Vlad watches his throat working to swallow. "I did not arrange this meeting to talk about myself. I must be, I'm sure, of little interest to you. I would like to hear of your experiences."

To Vlad, Van Helsing makes sense. There is a spot of weakness still dark, and he is not yet sure of all his particulars, the circumstantial details that have led to who he is now, but he understands the way Van Helsing's mind works, and he knows the things that he would say and do if he wished to hurt the eager university student. "You wish to ascertain whether I am mad."

Suddenly, Van Helsing laughs, a deep laugh that rumbles from his stomach. Immediately he seems embarrassed by it, and regains some professional demeanor. "Yes," he says, "I mean no offense to you, but there are many who suffer delusions of –"

Vlad nods – he does not wish to hear some tedious lecture of a disclaimer. "I understand. And your opinion of my sanity is of little significance to me. I am here only because you are clever, and because I have found less in Amsterdam to occupy me than I expected. This is my last night in your city, and, following that, neither of us will see the other again. Thus, your opinions shall have no impact upon the course of my life."

He thinks, for a moment, of crystallizing Van Helsing's belief in him with teeth in the man's neck. Van Helsing's brown-blond straight hair has to it a certain attraction, and Vlad would enjoy the sight of that confident mouth twisted in pain and fear. But something about all that seems vaguely distasteful to him.

"I understand," Van Helsing says, and Vlad is pleased to hear caution in his voice.

Vlad stands, and pushes his chair in. "Let's leave here. I do not wish to have this conversation in public."

Van Helsing gulps down the remainder of his coffee, and takes out money for the bill. "Yes, if you like. We oughtn't go to my rooms, I think –"

_Why? _Vlad wonders to himself for a moment, and then something connects in his mind and the dark spot in Van Helsing's personality, the thing that did not quite make sense so far, begins to be illuminated. "I've rented rooms near here," he tells Van Helsing, "we can go there."

If Van Helsing has any ounce of practicality in him, he would say no, but he nods, leaves coins on the table, and follows Vlad.

They do not talk much on the walk through Amsterdam's twisting streets, around the canals that shine in the moonlight. When they get there, Vlad sees Van Helsing taking in all he sees, but there is nothing there out of the ordinary but for Vlad's coffin, and the magic-rich soil within.

Vlad sits down, on an ugly, nineteenth century chair that he would never have bought for his own home. "Now," he says, "what would you like to know?"

Van Helsing doesn't sit down. He seems suddenly ill at ease. "I have read many superstitions about the undead," he begins, and Vlad wonders where he found that word, with its cryptic, ritualistic sound, "I don't know which of them are true, if any."

"What have you read?" Vlad asks him.

Van Helsing speaks in nearly a monotone, reciting a list he probably recorded in some notebook, "That the undead can change shape, turning into a great variety of animals. That they cannot cross running water or enter into a house uninvited. That they are weakened by sunlight and must act only during the day. That they are burned by holy objects for they are damned, cursed by god, unredeemable." He pauses. "Are those true?"

"In essence. The rules are far more detailed than that. And I do not know the details of my own damnation or lack thereof, as it is of little concern to an immortal."

Van Helsing doesn't even blink. "I'm not certain I believe that you're immortal."

Vlad wants to laugh. "Is that the extent to which you think I am delusional?"

Van Helsing steps backwards. "Or lying to me. To convince me of powers that you do not have."

"Why would I want to do that?"

Van Helsing doesn't answer. Vlad looks at the unfashionable cut of his worn waistcoat, watches the envy in his eyes, and takes pity on Van Helsing. He smiles, as kindly as it is possible for him to smile. "Come. Sit down. You've wanted to see supernatural phenomena, I understand? Let me teach you something."

Van Helsing does sit down, carefully, watching Vlad's every movement. Vlad continues, "You've heard of hypnotism, I trust?"

Van Helsing nods. "James Braid's technique. Yes, I've heard of it."

"I can teach you how to accomplish it. Your own, unscientific miracle."

Van Helsing's voice grows faster as he speaks, so that Vlad thinks perhaps he is reaching a point of hysteria. "It's not what I want to know. There are plenty of scientists willing to study mesmerism. There are things out there that I have heard of, tales of beings rising from their graves to prey upon the living. You are like those tales, but rational, looking like…you are almost human. You can tell me where to go –"

"Do you intend to leave Amsterdam, Abraham?"

Van Helsing doesn't seem even to register Vlad's use of his first name. "I do, as soon as I finish my exams, get my degree. I will be able to –"

"You won't have other obligations by that point? Many do. You are not one of those who achieves a medical degree merely out of curiosity, for it is my understanding that you need to earn a living. If you are to have a family –"

Van Helsing stands, pushing his chair back with a clatter that makes it sound as if he has broken something. He looks at the curtained window. A dull satisfaction fills Vlad at the near confirmation of his earlier surmise. He lowers his voice. "Abraham Van Helsing, what is it you _want?"_

"I am engaged to be married." The words come from Van Helsing's lips in an emotionless monotone.

Vlad understands. He doesn't need to look inside Van Helsing's mind to know his story, for it is a common one, that of many men who Vlad has met in dark alleyways over the centuries, men half broken by trying to fit their own desires to the unforgiving society in which they live. Vlad understands Van Helsing's paranoia, his wish not to have Vlad come to his rooms lest someone see and think something of it, something perhaps too close to the truth –

Vlad feels a sort of compassion for the man. It is not a compassion that will trouble him, but it is enough that he tells him, not caring whether Van Helsing's wonders at his comprehension, "Break off the engagement."

Van Helsing looks at him as though that is an unimaginable possibility.

"You will be unhappy," Vlad tells him, "you will want always to travel the world and leave her behind. You will, with it, drive both her and yourself mad. You will fail in an impossible fidelity and torment yourself with guilt the span of your life. I have seen it many times. Break off the engagement, travel to those places which you dream of visiting, whatever they are, South America or Africa – see your supernatural phenomena, fuck whoever you like and put aside your ideas of damnation."

Van Helsing's face is red and his fists clenched at his sides, as though he will hit Vlad. "Don't try to tempt me, you demon."

"I thought you were attempting to be a detached scientist making observations without judgment. You disappoint me."

Van Helsing doesn't begin to go to the door, though Vlad half expects him to. "I shouldn't have been so…naïve as to think that a being such as you wouldn't attempt to draw me to damnation, to use my own weaknesses to –"

Vlad kisses him. It is a cruel thing to do, and within moments he tastes the salt of tears dripping onto Van Helsing's lips. He does not do it out of attraction, for the men he is attracted to normally do not have Van Helsing's confident solidity. He does it for Van Helsing's sake, because Van Helsing needs such a shocking jolt out of habit, and because Vlad is tired of seeing so many men and women ruin themselves over something so ridiculous. Most human morals he can at least understand intellectually, but this one seems only idiotic and harmful.

When he pulls away from the kiss, Vlad sees that Van Helsing is sobbing, but laughing through it, and he realizes that, probably, Van Helsing is in some twilight place between madness and sanity himself already. "Let me teach you how to hypnotize," Vlad says again.

"Yes," Van Helsing says, still laughing and crying, "teach me, unclean hell-beast, Satan's seducer. I have already sinned in this meeting with you, I shall sin more, but, after this night, Lucifer will not win over me further. I will dedicate myself to ridding the world of evil, and to the preservation of my own virtue. You shall see that, though my flesh is weak and my mind is tempted with curiosity at Satan's preternatural manifestations, I shall have restraint."

Vlad doesn't see a threat in that weak, self-loathing man whose façade of confidence had been so easily cracked. Van Helsing, Vlad thinks, probably shall break off his engagement, after this night. Perhaps he will go to distant lands and study obscure diseases and never return to Europe. Perhaps Vlad's few words were enough for that.

And so he smiles calmly. "In that case, would you happen to have a pocket-watch? That, I believe, would be the best implement with which to teach hypnotism."

And Van Helsing sits down beside him.


End file.
